Answer to Question 1
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was passed by the U.S. Congress and signed into law in 1996 . Its goal was to make health insurance portable from one job to another and to secure the privacy of medical records. Its privacy provisions went into effect gradually starting in 2003, and the enforcement rule went into effect in 2006 . Its primary purpose is to protect the privacy of individually identifiable health information. Basically, patients must be aware of the privacy policy of the health care provider and be notified when their information is shared (with major exceptions detailed in the Patriot and Homeland Security acts). Patients are guaranteed the right to see and request changes and corrections in their medical records. The information may be used for research, but software exists to remove all personal identifiers. Staff must be trained to respect the privacy of patients. They should not discuss patients in a public area, and measures must be taken to ensure that only authorized people in the office see the record. HITECH increases the penalties for violating the HIPAA Privacy Rule.
Answer to Question 2
A
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